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How to make Guu Toronto’s awesome beef shabu shabu salad

Guu Toronto’s beef shabu shabu salad packs some sugar in its sesame dressing, but’s worth it. Here’s the recipe for making the recipe from Japan at home.

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Guu Toronto's popular beef shabu shabu salad is a cunning combination -- sweet and sour with some crunch, all at the same time. Feast chef Corey Mintz shows how to assemble it.(Photos and video by Keith Beaty)

After 10 years in North America, you’d think chef Natsuhiko Sugimoto would embrace some Ghostface, or at least some Kendrick Lamar. He says he’s not homesick for Japan but he does miss Vancouver, where on his days off he would go snowboarding.

Today he is showing me how to make his shabu shabu beef salad with sesame dressing, a cunning combination in which a little sweet, a little sour and a fistful of umami disguise a reasonably healthful salad. Or is it the other way around?

A reader requested the dish and was surprised when I told her that the dressing is packed with sugar. So if that bothers you, stop reading now.

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Sugimoto starts with greens assembled in the bowl — a collection of lettuces with a little red cabbage for effect — undressed.

Sure, there are ways you might take out the sugar, or take out the beef, agrees Corey Mintz. Why do any of that, though? "When we could just eat a big bowl of raw kale and go to a hot yoga class."
(KEITH BEATY / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

Sugimoto starts with greens assembled in the bowl — a collection of lettuces with a little red cabbage for effect — undressed. Then come a smorgasbord of finely-tuned ingredients.
(KEITH BEATY / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

Butchers ought to oblige if you are seeking thinly-sliced raw beef, though they should clean the slicer carefully afterward. (KEITH BEATY / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

Natsuhiko Sugimoto, of Guu Toronto. He makes his shabu shabu beef salad is a cunning combination in which a little sweet, a little sour and a fistful of umami disguise a reasonably healthful salad. (KEITH BEATY / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

He peels off a handful of shabu shabu beef slices. The super-thin slices of beef (a soft cut such as ribeye, striploin or tenderloin) are a staple of Japanese cooking, usually in a hot pot dish. You can find it frozen in Asian supermarkets. The Chinese grocery near me carries similar cuts of lamb shoulder, pork shoulder and beef chuck.

Or you can get your butcher to do it for you.

“The best way to slice beef super thinly and evenly is to partially freeze it and shave it on a meat slicer,” says my butcher, Peter Sanagan. “The problem is that most butcher shops don’t have a meat slicer dedicated to raw meat. There is a problem with cross contamination if not cleaned properly. Having said that, it is totally doable and a decent butcher should be able to accommodate. The alternative would be to slice it with a knife as thinly as possible and give it a light pounding. This isn’t traditional perhaps, but it is effective.”

So there are options. Note: If you are asking for shabu shabu beef in a Japanese grocery, remember that shabu is a Japanese street name for crystal meth.

Sugimoto places the beef in a basket, the type often used for ramen noodles, dipping it into a pot of boiling water for no more than 10 seconds. A slotted spoon, tongs or chopsticks will do. Just so long as the tool can snatch the beef out of the water quickly, before it overcooks. Or if you’re making a lot, pour it into a colander.

Shaking it dry, he drapes the beef over the lettuce, before hitting it with two kinds of dressing.

He doesn’t have measurements for either, just a list of ingredients. So I taste them both and do my best to best to replicate them at home. The first is a light, tangy dressing of rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, canola oil, garlic and ginger. The second is a rich, thick sauce of black sesame seeds, soy sauce, mirin and sugar.

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Guu Toronto's popular beef shabu shabu salad is a cunning combination -- sweet and sour with some crunch, all at the same time. Feast chef Corey Mintz shows how to assemble it.(Photos and video by Keith Beaty)

Both of the liquids are zigzagged over the beef and lettuce, which are then topped with a julienne of bell peppers and garlic chips.

The garlic chips are a common garnish at Guu, giving dishes what Sugimoto calls “putty-putty” and what we would call “crunch”. At the restaurant, the garlic is sliced paper thin, blanched, shocked and dried, then deep-fried somewhere around 180F/82C. I’ve seen enough reader mail to estimate that this is the one step too far that will make this recipe appear inaccessible. But the salad does need a crunch to round it out.

I experimented with puffed rice (aka Rice Krispies). If it’s good enough for Momofuku’s brussels sprout dish, it’s good enough for this salad. Tossing them with a splash of sesame oil and a pinch of garlic powder gives us most of the flavour and texture elements we lost with the garlic chips. The result is not a facsimile, but close enough in spirit.

“Hopefully there’s a healthier substitute you can suggest that will elicit the same fantastic taste,” replied the reader, when I informed her about the sugar.

Sure, we could switch the sugar for honey. Or even agave syrup. But then why top it with beef, when avocado would be better for us? Why do any of it, when we could just eat a big bowl of raw kale and go to a hot yoga class.

In a large mixing bowl, combine puffed rice, sesame oil and garlic powder.

Fill four serving bowls with lettuce and (optional) cabbage.

In a large pot of boiling water, cook shabu shabu beef for 15 seconds. Strain into colander and distribute beef over lettuce. Drizzle vinegar dressing over bowls, followed by sesame dressing. Garnish with bell peppers and garlic puffed rice. Serve with chopsticks.

Makes four servings.

Star tested by Corey Mintz. If you know a great restaurant dish, tell me and I’ll ask the chef to share it. Email mintz.corey@gmail.com

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